Jan201124

The new YouView internet-connected television platform, backed by a consortium of British broadcasters and network operators, is now unlikely to launch before next year, according to a further damaging media report. Mark Thompson, the director general of the BBC, took the opportunity of a speech at the Oxford Media Convention and an audience including Jeremy Hunt, the government minister with responsibility for media, to defend the role of the BBC in defining the increasingly troubled YouView platform.

“The universal delivery of high quality free-to-air content faces immediate threats and a future which is by no means certain,” he said. “Unless the broadcasters take an active role in defending it, it could disappear entirely.”